Flower and Insect at the Redemptorist Retreat Center, Tucson, AZ

I’m writing from the Arizona Five-Day Academy for Spiritual Formation, in Tucson, AZ.  Serendipitously, our theme here is focusing on the journey of a seed as it eventually becomes part of a garden. We are talking a lot about the Desert Christians, the Christians who retreated into the deserts of Egypt and Syria and other parts of the Middle East beginning in the 4th century.  They went to the desert for many reasons, but one of them was that people found that in the stark emptiness of the desert, where there is no place to hide, illusions can be stripped away.  In the desert, we discover that we are finite creatures, who have bodily needs.  In the desert, we discover that we can’t control other people or the circumstances of life.  In the desert, we have the opportunity to realize the ways that we think and act like we are God, rather than letting God be God.

Barrel Cactus, Redemptorist Renewal Center, Tucson, AZ

The idea is that when the early Christians went into the desert, they entered into an experience where there were no distractions. And they were there, as part of a community, upon which they depended, but also in solitude, left alone with God, themselves, and the voices in their head.  And in such a circumstance, they had the time and space to really wrestle with themselves, and to discern which of the voices, which messages, values, habits, opinions, desires, self-images, attitudes, etc., are of God, and which are not of God.  Which of these things are reflective of the image of God that is in me, and which things are not.  Which of these things are rooted in and expressions of love, and which are not.

It seems to me that this is very much a part of what is meant when we talk about tending our own garden, as we’ve been discussing in our pledge campaign.  God has given us the privilege of responsibility over much in our lives.  We have spouses, children, siblings, pets, and other important parts of our family, who we love, who we take care of, who we provide for.  We have jobs which come with enormous responsibility.  We have property and all that is entailed in caring for our physical space and financial assets. We have a community of people, at church and beyond church, which we are connected to and share life with. We make thousands of decisions everyday about how to spend

Barrel Cactus Bloom, Redemptorist Renewal Center, Tucson, AZ

our time, our money, our attention.  What seeds do we water? What soil do we tend? Which are the weeds and which are the plants which are healthy and fruit-bearing? What do we do with the weeds when we discover them? Where is God in all of this?

These are not always easy questions when we dig down deeper, when we decide we are going to move beyond the status quo.  These are the same sorts of questions our Desert Mothers and Fathers asked long ago.  And I invite you to spend some time wrestling, digging into these very real questions of what it is to live a life fully reflective of the image of God that is within you, particularly as it pertains to how we are stewards, how we give, how we make decisions about all the things given to our care.  It’s gardening, desert-style.